Daybreak: Mad Mel Makes Maccabee?

• Mel Gibson is producing a movie about Judah Maccabee. Joe Eszterhas is writing the script; Gibson may direct and even star. There is no joke to be made. This is the joke. [24 Frames LAT]

• President Abbas said that U.S. entreaties to halt the U.N. statehood gambit were “too late.” [NYT]

• Talks over captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit remain deadlocked, said a Hamas official. Meanwhile, Shalit’s father insisted that the United Nations should not recognize Palestine until his son is free. [Ynet/Vos Iz Neias?/AP/WP]

• Weird story: eight people aboard a yacht in the Strait of Tiran—including four security men—were arrested by Egypt Wednesday, interrogated, and then released today. [Ynet]

• Five judges have been named to try those indicted for the 2005 assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. [AP/WP]

• Excellent review of Lucette Lagnado’s new memoir, The Arrogant Years, by our fearless editor in chief Alana Newhouse. [NYT]

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Unlike most Jews, a Catholic traditionalist like Gibson has read the two books of Maccabees in the apocrypha. Click the link over my name, and you’ll see exactly why he wants to make that movie.

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